diy canvas cross-stitch

Now that Halloween is over, my brain automatically goes to Christmas. We're not that far away from December 25th! Christmas is always a time that I make many different things, so I started with a little decoration. I made this spider for Halloween (it was a complete copy cat project - you can get the template here) and I loved it so much that I wanted to make my own Christmas version (you can download the Reindeer Template here and follow along. FYI - you'll have to scale it to fit your canvas size).

I started by sketching out what I wanted my design to look like on some graph paper. This gave me an idea of size and how many "stitches" I would have. Next, using Google Sketchup (a free program I use for design/work), I drew out my blocks and finalized my design. He was starting to look pretty cute! I printed a few different sizes and went to the craft store.

Next, I picked up an 8x8 canvas at Michael's (with a 40% coupon!) and  painted it the same green color I had used for my spider above (I figured I should use what I have on hand). After the paint was dry, I cut out my template and taped it to the inside of my canvas. Using a needle, I poked holes at all intersections where I would be stitching.

The rest of it went a little bit like this:
poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke...poke...stitch stitch stitch stitch change colors stitch stitch stitch some more...stitch stitch stitch... DONE (finally)!

I hot glued the loose ends to the back of the canvas to make sure nothing would come undone (you don't see the back anyway so it doesn't have to be pretty). Then I propped it on our little console table in place of Mr. Spider (who will have to wait to make an appearance again next year). Merry Christmas!!...err...I guess I'm getting ahead of myself... Maybe I'll make a turkey next.

Happy stitching :)

[p.s. this post may be linked to any number of these blogs]